When summer learned to breathe

CHAPTER 14: THE SILENCE BETWEEN WORDS

The days after our fight blurred into one long stretch of silence.

Adrian didn’t text. I didn’t call. At school, we passed each other in the hallways like strangers, our eyes grazing past one another, never quite meeting.

It was worse than arguing. At least anger meant there was still something burning between us. Silence was emptiness. Silence was absence.

And absence hurt in ways I hadn’t known were possible.

By Wednesday, Daisy cornered me by the vending machines.

“You look like death,” she said flatly, popping open a soda.

“Thanks,” I muttered, leaning against the wall.

She tilted her head. “You and Adrian still aren’t talking?”

I shook my head. “I told him how I felt. He said he didn’t know what he felt. And now…” My voice cracked. “Now there’s nothing.”

Daisy softened, her usual sharpness giving way to quiet concern. “Summer, you can’t keep bleeding for someone who won’t even admit he’s holding the knife.”

I blinked at her, stunned by the metaphor.

She shrugged. “What? I read poetry sometimes.”

Despite the ache in my chest, a small laugh slipped out. But it didn’t erase the truth. I was still bleeding.

That night, I sat at my window, watching the streetlights flicker on. Every evening of summer had been lit by Adrian, his voice, his laughter, his presence. Now the night felt empty.

I picked up the cassette tape he’d given me, but I couldn’t bring myself to press play. The songs that once felt like promises now felt like ghosts.

Instead, I pressed the tape to my chest and whispered into the dark: “Why couldn’t you just say you felt it too?”

By Friday, rumors swirled through the hallways.

Adrian and Marissa at the arcade. Adrian and Marissa laughing at lunch. Adrian and Marissa, Adrian and Marissa.

Each time I heard it, the words cut deeper.

In math class, I caught him looking at me. For a moment, hope sparked that maybe he’d come over, maybe he’d try. But then he looked away, and the spark died.

The weekend was worse.

Saturdays had been ours, bike rides, swings, ice cream cones melting faster than we could eat them. Now I sat in my room, staring at my phone, waiting for a message that never came.

On Sunday, I cracked. I typed out a text:

I miss you.

My finger hovered over the send button. My chest throbbed with longing, fear, pride.

And then I deleted it.

If he missed me too, he’d say it.

By Monday morning, the silence had carved a hollow inside me.

When I walked into school, Adrian was at his locker. For once, Marissa wasn’t beside him. It was just him.

For a fleeting second, I almost walked over. Almost.

But then he shut his locker and walked the other way, not even noticing me.

That was when I realized the silence wasn’t temporary. It was becoming permanent.

And permanence felt like the cruelest ending of all.

That night, I wrote in my journal, the words spilling out like a confession:

Maybe we were never meant to last. Maybe some people come into your life just long enough to change it, but not long enough to stay.

I closed the notebook, wiped my eyes, and crawled into bed.

Sleep didn’t come easy. But when it finally did, it carried me into dreams of a boy with soft brown eyes, whispering promises he’d never say in the daylight.